On Monday, Hell Gate published an interview with one of the authors of a new study that challenges the idea that the "abundance agenda"—shorthand for building more housing supply and decreasing regulations to do so—is the key to fixing New York City's housing crisis, highlighting the study's findings that "inequality, not regulation," is the problem.
The study's conclusion, and co-author Maximilian Buchholz's assertion that "no amount of housing we build is going to make prices drop," sparked intense criticism from supply-side evangelists and a spirited debate in the article's comment section about what has led New York City to a rental crisis marked by historically low vacancy rates and record-high rents.
The article's fiercest critics appeared to be the housing policy wonks who subscribe to the school of philosophy best articulated in the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson book "Abundance," which argues that local zoning laws and building codes keep rents overinflated by preventing the housing market from creating enough new housing. Some picked apart the study's methodology, and expressed concern that it was not peer-reviewed. Others pointed out that the study's conclusions were disingenuous because the authors actually did concede that vastly increasing the housing supply would lower rents. (Other critics were less substantive: Former NYPD Chief of Department John Chell called Hell Gate "the extreme toilet bowl of NYC journalism," while former state lawmaker and current real estate mouthpiece Kenny Burgos referred to us "the most unserious 'news outlet' in NYC.")
Because we love a good debate, Hell Gate asked independent urban policy researcher Ned Resnikoff to explain what he felt was flawed about the study and our original Q&A. Resnikoff, who has a master's in Public Policy from UC Berkeley, and who has previously worked as a policy director for California YIMBY, and as a housing fellow for the Roosevelt Institute, previously criticized Buchholz's study in a piece for his blog Public Comment. He recently authored a piece titled, "There Is No Housing Affordability Without Building More Housing."
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.